padsley

padsley t1_j1gibby wrote

Huh. Well, glad it was successful. Remember that the committee/jury generally want you to be successful so don't stress about it too much. We (as a committee member on a few of them) are checking that you are making progress and seem to know what you're doing. In the past we've ended up giving homework to students who couldn't answer certain things but we're not going to fail them for that sort of mistake.

So... Don't stress too much about it. It's important but not enough for you to be anxious. :) Easier said than done, of course.

1

padsley t1_iy73in6 wrote

I'm a nuclear-physics professor and this is an excellent question to which the answer is "maybe but we're still working on it".

Leaving aside the quantum is quantum and is weird aspect, one recent observation in atomic nuclei is that there are short-range correlations within nuclei which mean that this idea that protons and neutrons are effectively not interacting because of the limited orbitals available isn't correct. The extent to which it isn't correct is unclear. There are also other clumps of nuclear matter which can form within nuclei. This means that the distinctiveness of individual protons and neutrons is a bit hard to fathom.

Anyway, this was probably unhelpful but I think that the answer is a solid "maybe" (but one based on a lot of semantics and interpretation).

2